


The Dew of Little Things

by Pouler (poulerslashes)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Kagehina Exchange, M/M, Pre-Slash, a small amount of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 21:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3355145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poulerslashes/pseuds/Pouler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It wasn't as though Kageyama needed the friends – kids who shared video games, who watched cartoons, who did this and that of no consequence – who would eat up all his time if he gave them any to start with. He had volleyball, and volleyball was more than enough." (This fic was written for the Kagehina Exchange! It is a gift for #57. You asked for fluff... I tried really hard ;_;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dew of Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend." -Martin Luther King, Jr
> 
> "In the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." -Khalil Gibran

When Kageyama Tobio was eight years old, he was uninvited from his classmate's birthday party.

“The other kids, you know?” his classmate said. “I want to make sure everybody has a good time. We'll be playing games and – Kageyama-kun, you're so competitive and, really, it probably wouldn't be that fun for you anyway, don't you think?”

“Okay,” Kageyama mumbled.

“You understand, right?” his classmate insisted. “It's not a big deal.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

When he'd gone home that night and told his mom about the incident, she'd pursed her lips and looked at him with such an expression of concern that he worried he'd made her upset. But she'd just said “Oh, Tobio-chan,” and went off to call his classmate's mother.

Kageyama went to the party after all and hated every minute of it. After that, the kids stopped inviting him, and he'd stopped worrying about what he was missing.

It wasn't as though he needed the friends – kids who shared video games, who watched cartoons, who did this and that of no consequence – who would eat up all his time if he gave them any to start with. He had volleyball, and volleyball was more than enough.

“Tobio-chan,” his mother said, when he came home on a Friday after club practice, “don't you want to invite any of your friends over for the weekend?”

“I don't have any friends,” he told her, matter-of-fact, without a trace of disappointment because there was none. And when he went down the hall to take a bath, he didn't see the look she exchanged with his father behind his back, the one that asked, _what should we do about our son_?

It went much the same for him until middle school, when he looked up and finally saw someone in front of him that he admired.

“Oikawa-san,” he'd asked, “can you teach me how to jump serve?”

At the time he'd not thought as much of how things had been between them, but when he became the official setter of Kitagawa Daiichi, he began to realize – the way his teammates looked at him was not the way they'd looked at Oikawa.

Still, what did it matter? If he was the better player – if he was the better setter – who cared if they looked at him any particular way? And if they couldn't match his speed or reach his level – that wasn't his fault, was it? In high school he'd be at the top, with other athletes of his caliber – and who would care about it then?

Kageyama told himself this story once more, on the side of the court, staring at his shaking hands where he'd fisted them in the fabric of his shorts. He'd thrown the towel over his head so no one would see his face – and all he could think of was that kid from the first day of the tournament– the one who jumped and shouted and didn't give up on his piss-poor team. At the time, Kageyama had thought the boy was incredibly, unbelievably foolish. But now he just felt. _Jealous_. What did it feel like, he wondered, to have that kind of faith?

When the rejection letter came from Shiratorizawa, his mother found him buried beneath the covers of his bed. “Tobio-chan,” she called. He grimaced at the diminutive. “Tobio-chan,” she said again as she pulled the blanket from his face. “Dear, it's alright to cry if you want to.”

“I'm not crying,” he returned, because he wasn't. “Don't call me that.”

But she'd not said anything else, just smiled sadly and rubbed his head as she'd always done since he was very small.

Karasuno had been a disappointment almost from the very beginning – first there was the news that Coach Ukai would not be returning and then. That. Kid. Again.

Kageyama couldn't believe he'd ever remotely considered the idea that he might be jealous – _jealous_? – of that idiot kid who had no control over his body – who'd wasted his entire potential to the point that – god, was it even _worth_ it to try and train him – even a _l_ _ittle_? Kageyama was certain that he'd be better off with a lamppost playing beside him than that bundle of elbows and disheveled hair.

But when they'd connected with his toss and Hinata's jump he felt – like something had shaken loose inside of him, tumbling around like a rock in his shoe, and now and then a sharp corner would prick him, and he'd have to reel back and try to find that broken piece to put it back in place again. He was not the sort of person who was used to having things out of place.

When he'd finally realized what sort of team it was at Karasuno – after the match against the other first years, the humiliating prospect of facing his old teammates at Aoba Johsai, after all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle at started to settle into place inside his head – Kageyama took a step back from himself. He saw how foolish he'd been, how lonely and frightened. And when he'd told Azumane that no one played volleyball by themselves, well. The truth was, he'd actually begun to believe it. He'd realized he never really had before.

“You look very healthy, Tobio,” his mother told him over dinner. “Your color is very good. Isn't his color good, dear?” Kageyama's father made a noncommittal sound of agreement and continued reading the stack of papers he'd brought home from the office.

“Of course I'm healthy,” Kageyama returned irritably, and he reached across the table for a second helping of food.

His mother pinched his cheek fondly, and Kageyama let her do it, instead of knocking her hand away as he usually did.

After the match with Aoba Johsai, after he and Hinata screamed it out between the walls of Karasuno's second gymnasium, after the practice that followed that set their determination like tempered steel, when they sat together in the pleasant exhaustion that followed a good workout – something Kageyama had begun to realize, they seemed to do a lot – Hinata turned to him and mumbled, “You know, I really hate losing.”

“Don't be stupid,” Kageyama returned. “Of course you hate losing.”

Hinata glared at him, mouth turned down in a tight half-circle of displeasure. “I'm never gonna lose to you again,” he clarified.

Kageyama bristled. “You can't lose to me, we're on the same team.”

“No,” Hinata said, and he leaned closer, close enough that Kageyama could smell him, sweat and salt, the sweet mild scent of his shampoo that somehow had lingered in his hair. “I hate losing, and I'll never lose to you again, but losing _with_ you...” His eyes were bright. Kageyama could see that the iris in his left one had a golden ring around the pupil. “Losing with you I think I can tolerate once in awhile.”

Hinata leaned back and drank from his water bottle casually. He seemed to give the matter no more thought at all. But Kageyama's face burned – his heart pounded in his chest – he wondered if he imagined the way it seemed to echo in his ears, so loud that he was sure Hinata might hear it.

Kageyama went home that day, found his mother in the study, and asked her, “Can I invite my.” He frowned. “Can I invite my teammate over on Saturday?”

His mom blinked at him and took off her reading glasses. “Tobio,” she said. “Do you have a friend?”

“My _teammate_ ,” he said again, more firmly.

“Oh, Tobio-chan,” she said, and her voice sounded a bit misty, which made him uncomfortable.

“Nevermind,” he said brusquely. He turned on his heel and went to take a bath.

Over dinner, his mother suggested they play games, watch movies, “all those things boys love to do!” she insisted, and Kageyama hunched nervously over his food.

“It's not like that, Mom,” he said. “We're gonna practice.”

“A friend?” His dad said, as he put his report down.

“A teammate!” Kageyama insisted again.

“Of course, dear, of course,” his mother said, beaming. “Find out his favorite food for me, Tobio. I'll make it for Saturday.”

Hinata, it turned out, was more than enthused to visit, and Kageyama's mother doted on him endlessly, pinched his cheeks the same way she did Kageyama's, fed him seconds and thirds – “you must grow more, Shouyou-chan,” she said. Kageyama put his head down on the table and covered the back of it with his hands. He'd never been more embarrassed in his entire life.

In his bedroom Hinata laughed out loud. “Look at all your _comics_!” he keened, and he picked one up and flopped on the bed to look through it.

Kageyama felt himself flush in displeasure – altogether this day was not turning out as he'd planned – not that he'd planned anything, really. Not that he had any idea what to expect in the first place. “I'm not allowed to like comics?” He sat down stiffly in his desk chair.

“I dunno, I'm just surprised,” Hinata mused as he flipped through the pages. He was laying on his back, holding the comic above his face. His shirt had ridden up and exposed the flat pale flesh of his stomach. Kageyama looked away, his own stomach churning. Hinata didn't notice. “I guess I thought you only read volleyball mags.” Kageyama used his elbow to casually push the magazine on his desk under his school books. “Maybe we should practice a little,” he suggested.

“Naw,” Hinata said. “We had practice this morning, and we have it again tomorrow! Let's play a video game instead.”

Kageyama cleared his throat awkwardly. He rubbed his elbow. “I don't. Have any.”

Hinata sat up abruptly. “You don't have any video games?” 

Kageyama shook his head. 

“Nothing? None at all?”

“No.”

“Not even a–” Hinata held his hands out in front of him as though he were holding an invisible box. He waggled his thumbs over his palms.

“What's that supposed to be?” Kageyama asked irritably.

“A handheld!” Hinata demanded.

“Look, I don't have any, alright?” Kageyama shouted. Discomfort was beginning to take its toll. He was sure Hinata was going to laugh again, or walk out the door. But Hinata just stared at him, long enough that the hair began to rise on the back of Kageyama's neck.

“You know,” Hinata said carefully, “I think you might be an alien.”

“What are you _talking_ about, you idiot,” Kageyama hissed.

“Right, well,” Hinata said. He set Kageyama's comic book carefully back on the neat stack with its brothers. “How about a movie then?”

Hinata had ridiculed his movie selection too, but they'd settled on one of his dad's old westerns. When Hinata came back the next weekend, he brought a console with him and two controllers, and a healthy selection of games. The weekend after that, he brought a handful of movies. The one after that, Kageyama had gone to Hinata's house instead.

Hinata's house was smaller than his, and extremely cluttered in comparison to the minimalist household that Kageyama's father preferred. Hinata's little sister took to Kageyama immediately with a fierce little stare he found excessively familiar. She climbed all over him – put stickers on Kageyama's collar and tried to play with his hair – Hinata yelled at her to leave them alone, which made her cry, so they let her stay in the room to watch cartoons with them. She insisted on sitting in Kageyama's lap while they watched, and he'd been torn by conflicting sensations of terror that he'd damage her in some way and pleasure that she'd even liked him at all.

She fell asleep as the evening drew on, and Hinata's mother asked them to put her to bed.

“Sorry about this,” Hinata said in the darkness of the hallway as Kageyama carried her toward her bedroom at the end.

Kageyama shook his head. “I don't mind,” he whispered, and he meant it. His parents had been a bit on the old side when he'd been born, and he'd never had any siblings. A warm pit had opened in his stomach, and Hinata's old musty house seemed to make it grow.

It was only a few weeks later that everything shattered between them, and Kageyama came home from practice surrounded by a cloud so dark it seemed like his entire life had dimmed.

“Tobio,” his mother called through the doorway as he took his bath. “Is everything alright?”

He didn't respond, only slunk down in the water to his ears and wondered how he was going to tell her not to expect Hinata to visit again anytime soon. Maybe ever? Kageyama knew she'd be disappointed. She seemed to be so taken with Hinata.

Really, he mused, it had all be a rather interesting sort of experiment, but maybe it was time to return to the natural order of his life – and wouldn't it be nice to have Saturdays to himself again? He thought this way until Saturday rolled itself into being, and he spent nearly the entire day laying on his bed, looking at the ceiling, too frustrated and angry to even hold the ball in his hands. Maybe he'd get used to it again, he thought. After all, having the weekend to himself had never seemed to bother him before.

He thought about Natsu, the drawing she had made him, the one he'd tucked away carefully in his desk. Kageyama rolled over in bed and pressed his face into his pillow.

The weeks went on, and Kageyama's mother stopped asking after Hinata so much. And Kageyama thought everything might finally start to even out, except – there was the matter of his toss, and more specifically, Hinata's demands on it.

“Don't take it easy on me,” Hinata ordered.

“Why the hell would I take it easy on you?” Kageyama demanded.

“You gotta promise you never will!” Hinata insisted.

Kageyama grabbed Hinata's head and squeezed. “I promise to never, ever consider the remote possibility of taking it easy on you,” he sneered.

Hinata flailed beneath his grip. “Good!” he shouted, even as he grimaced in pain. “Just because we're friends or something – if you dare go easy on the toss I will never forgive you!”

Kageyama released his grip immediately. The word stabbed into his head – banged around in there like a shoe in a washing machine. “Friends,” he echoed, “are we friends?”

“You are so freakin' _dumb_!” Hinata shouted at him, and he stormed away.

In the days that followed the admission, the knot that had formed behind Kageyama's sternum eased a little bit, aided by the fact that Hinata had started waiting for him after practice again so they could walk together before Hinata took the road toward his house over the mountains.

“Hey,” Hinata said, after a few days of awkward quiet. “It's Natsu's birthday this weekend. She's been asking for you to come over again. Do you wanna come?”

Kageyama stared straight ahead. “Is it okay if I do?”

He felt more than saw Hinata shrug beside him. “I mean, I don't care. Come if you want. Natsu would like to see you.”

Kageyama's face creased as he drew his mouth tight. “Hinata,” he said carefully. “Are we friends?”

“You're so stupid,” Hinata said.

“No,” Kageyama said. He turned to look at Hinata. Kageyama noticed his cheeks were red. “I need to know for sure. I'm not good at telling.”

“You're so _stupid_ ,” Hinata said again, his voice sharper. “Of course we're friends, you idiot. You don't stop being friends because you had an argument.”

Kageyama felt his jaw clench. He thought again of their first meeting – how stupid Hinata had seemed to him then, how useless his loyalty. Now he felt it closing up his throat, making his chest feel tight. Torn by an emotion he could not name, his body moved before his mind caught up to it.

Kageyama reached forward and grabbed Hinata by the shoulder. His other arm he looped around Hinata's body until his hands met together. Hinata froze in place; his bike fell over and clattered aside. Kageyama hugged him awkwardly, all stiff arms and elbows, and pressed his face into his hands on Hinata's shoulder until his eyes stopped burning. Hinata smelled like his shampoo, his old house, and all the Saturdays they'd had between them.

“Kageyama,” Hinata said carefully, his voice bewildered.

“Sorry,” Kageyama returned. He stood up and released Hinata. He rubbed his nose in embarrassment and cleared his throat loudly.

“You really are an idiot, aren't you?” Hinata said, but his voice had no malice to it.

“No more than you,” Kageyama returned, and if his voice was a little thicker than usual, well. Neither of them pointed it out.

That weekend, when he stepped up to the front door of Hinata's house, the door opened before he even had a chance to knock. At first he thought it opened of its own accord, then he looked down and saw the familiar shock of hair about half as high off the ground as Hinata's own. Natsu looked at him with the fury of a thunderstorm. Her mouth opened and she took a breath, then yelled a single high-pitched note so loud and sustained that Kageyama thought she might actually combust.

“Natsu!” he heard Hinata shouting from inside the house, “What the heck is wrong with you!”

Natsu's cry petered out, and she stepped forward and buried her face against Kageyama's thighs. He felt her hands curl into the fabric of his pants. Hinata appeared behind her in the doorway, and when he saw the scene they'd made on the front porch, he groaned and put his hand to his forehead. “Sorry,” he said. “She missed you.”

Kageyama fisted his hands at his sides, unsure how to reply. At length he cleared his throat, then reached into his pocket. “Happy Birthday, Natsu,” he said, and he held out the candy he'd brought for her.

Natsu pulled her head back and blinked up at him, then looked at the candy in his hand. Her pout resolved itself into a toothy grin. Then she frowned again, and looked over her shoulder. “Tobio-nii brought me something,” she said. “Why didn't you get me anything, Brother?”

Hinata's mouth fell open in horrified shock. “It –” he stuttered. “I –” He bent down until he was nearly on her eyelevel. “It's not my responsibility!” he concluded dramatically. “And don't call him that!” Hinata added, pointing in Kageyama's direction. “It's disrespectful!”

“It's okay,” Kageyama said awkwardly.

“He's my friend,” Natsu insisted. “He likes it.” She grabbed Kageyama's hand and pulled him into the house.

Later, as Kageyama sat on the couch with a sleeping Natsu curled in his lap and Hinata dozing next to his shoulder, he allowed himself a small, cautious sort of happiness. He felt for a moment like maybe this friend thing was going to work out after all, maybe he wasn't as bad at it as he'd thought. That warm feeling in his stomach returned, and if he reached his hand over so that the back of it would rest lightly against Hinata's on the couch, no one really had to know, did they?

It was starting to get dark by the time that Kageyama realized he'd better head back home. Hinata offered to walk with him – “Then you'll be the one stuck after dark,” Kageyama pointed out sharply, and Hinata's look of realization had been priceless.

“Halfway then,” Hinata insisted, and in his weakened state, softened by warmth and the sounds of Hinata's home, Kageyama relented.

They walked in companionable silence for much of the way. Kageyama had his hands in his pockets to stave off the cooling air of early evening.

“Sorry about Natsu,” Hinata said, but Kageyama just shook his head. “She's a little bit ridiculous sometimes.”

“You're a lot alike,” Kageyama returned.

“What!” Hinata demanded. “How can you say that!”

“No,” Kageyama said, and he felt something suspiciously like laughter filling up his chest. “I mean that in a good way.” The feeling he'd had on the couch persisted, and he was strangely happy.

“You're so weird,” Hinata said. “I can't figure you out.”

Kageyama shrugged, at a loss for what else to say. He'd started the year with no one, and now he had not only one friend, but two.

“You have the whole team now, you dummy,” Hinata insisted, and Kageyama realized with no small embarrassment that he'd spoken his last thought aloud.

Kageyama cleared his throat to hide his mortification. “I'm not so good at this sort of thing,” he admitted quietly, and Hinata started laughing.

“Is that supposed to be some dramatic revelation?” he asked.

“Shut up!” Kageyama snapped. “It's not my fault!”

“Would you just chill out?” Hinata said, and he looped his arm into Kageyama's elbow.

Kageyama froze, his heart skipping a few beats in his chest. He stared forward, unsure how to react to the affection. He could feel the heat of Hinata's body against his side. Hinata's hair smelled so good that it almost seemed like a physical pain to him. The warm pit in Kageyama's stomach sank, and he felt heat rise up into his cheeks.

They didn't say much else for the rest of the walk, until they reached the intersection that marked the halfway point between their houses. Hinata slipped his arm out of Kageyama's, took a step back. “Are you good from here?” Hinata said.

“Of course I am,” Kageyama said sharply. “I would have been fine the whole way by myself.” 

“Alright, alright, jeez.” Hinata held his hands up in concession.

There was another awkward beat between them. Kageyama clenched his hands inside his pockets. “Well, I'll see you at practice,” he said.

“Okay,” Hinata returned. “See you.”

Kageyama turned at that moment to leave, but then he felt Hinata's hand on his arm. Hinata turned him back and took the step forward into Kageyama's personal space.

“What–” Kageyama started. He cut off abruptly when Hinata rocked upward onto his toes and hugged Kageyama tightly, arms around his neck, the warmth of his cheek pressed hard into Kageyama's skin.

Kageyama stopped breathing. He felt the world shrink to a small pinpoint of sensation – the tickle of Hinata's hair next to his face, the tight press of his body close to Kageyama's, the warm coast of his breath against Kageyama's throat. Kageyama heard his heart beat in his ears, quick and loud – a rushing sound like a river after a rainstorm.

Kageyama's hands slipped out of his pockets. He brought them up cautiously until they rested against Hinata's back. When Hinata didn't pull away, Kageyama fisted his hands into the fabric of his t-shirt and buried his face against Hinata's shoulder.

It somehow seemed to go on forever, and yet it still seemed too soon that Hinata's arms loosened around his neck, his face pulled away, and he settled back down on his heels. Kageyama took his hands away and let them fall to his sides. Even in the growing darkness, he could see the glint to Hinata's eyes, the heat in his face.

“I just thought,” Hinata said, his voice low, “that we should do that properly.”

Kageyama nodded. He didn't trust his voice to speak.

“Goodnight,” Hinata said, and the tone of it was so much more different than his previous goodbye.

“Goodnight,” Kageyama returned.

The thought of it kept Kageyama warm a long time after, even though the evening grew chilly around him as he hiked the rest of the way home.

_Friends_ , he thought to himself. It had never occurred to him that there might be something beyond. He looked ahead at all the Saturdays still in front of them. He put his hand on his chest, trying to put a name to the emotion that swirled around inside.

He realized, with no small amount of surprise, that it was optimism.


End file.
